Chapter Sixteen
Scarlett
“Idon’t get it,” Max says. “The whole plants thing. I mean, flowers are pretty to look at, but all of this work just to watch a seed grow into a plant?” he shakes his head. “Nah, that’s not for me.”
“It’s going to be for all of the Nighthawks soon enough,” I reply, adjusting the mister arms above the incubating flower beds.
The beds on the far-right side of the greenhouse have now been fertilized, tested, and as of today, planted.
The first round of seeds are simple enough—all root vegetables that’ll be transferred outside once I’ve been able to fix up the quality of the soil in the fields.
Until then, the plants will grow here, under my supervision.
The carrots, potatoes, and their likeness are all fine, but there’s nothing particularly interesting about them.
I’m far more excited about the other project I’m working on…
a hybrid between three different trees. If that succeeds, I can grow a forest of trees that’ll absorb five times as much carbon dioxide as any other living plant and turn it into oxygen at three times the rate of an average tree.
I may have lost my ability to research in the real world and get any accolades for my work… but at least I’ll be able to do something here. Even if it’s in service to the sort of people who all deserve to die horrible, painful deaths.
But… I don’t know that all of them actually do deserve to die horrible, painful deaths. I think some of them might be okay, even if they earn their living by taking human lives…
Max releases a low chuckle. It’s a raspy, pleasant sound that makes something in my chest twist. He’s easy to be around. Nothing like Monster, who’s default modes are angry, serious, or aroused. Max is actually pleasant, and even in the worst circumstances, he knows how to make me smile.
Maybe whatever girl he ends up tearing from her life and bringing here could actually find some happiness or peace with him. Despite what he does for a living, he seems like a good egg.
“What are these going to be?” Max walks up to the row of plant beds that I’ve just seeded and reaches out a finger, as if to poke at them.
“Don’t prod your fingers at them; you’re not a child. Act your age, not your shoe size.”
As soon as the words are out, I feel the blood drain from my face.
Max might be friendly with me, but that does not mean he’s my friend or ever will be.
Right now, he’s a stand-in guard dog who’s babysitting me to ensure I don’t try to run away or find a way to kill Monster.
I do not have the right to levy jokes and quips with him.
“I’m so s—”
Max roars with laughter, throwing his head back and cutting off my apology. He laughs so hard a tear falls from his eye. He wipes it away and grins at me. “That was a good one. Greyson was right; you are funny.”
I blink. I’ve never really considered myself to have a sense of humor—but that might be because I’ve kept my social interactions pretty minimal. I didn’t have any friends growing up, and I avoided people as much as I could during college.
I feel my cheeks heat as I make my way over to the computers in the center of the room.
The setup is high tech; three computer screens and several tablets monitor all the electrical systems in the greenhouse, from solar panels to misting arms to the probes inserted in every plant bed.
I pull up PH levels on screen and look through them, making sure that all the beds are healthy and hale.
“You’re cute when you blush,” Max comments, leaning his hip against one of the working tables and folding his arms over his chest.
“You probably shouldn’t say that to me,” I murmur. We both know that I’ve been reduced to Monster’s property; if he finds out that Max has his eye on me, or that Max commented on a blush he brought to my cheeks, Monster might freak out and do something drastic.
“I’m not making a move on you—I know you aren’t available,” Max says.
He glances around the room. “But… this is a tough place. Greyson’s a tough guy, and his obsession with you, how deeply he’s in love with you, could work against him.
He doesn’t know how to be lighthearted or friendly—he’s an all-in kind of a man.
I think you could use a friend.” Max’s voice gets a bit quieter. “I could use a friend, as well.”
“You’re surrounded by friends.”
“Not any female ones,” Max replies swiftly. “And… I’ll be up shortly in the lineup of guys who have to choose women to bring here and keep. Once I choose, I imagine whoever I pick up will also be in need of a friend.”
I swallow. “You know how wrong it is, right? You’ll be stealing someone’s life away.
You’ll confine them here, where they’ll effectively be your sex slave.
It’s…” I trail off with a shudder. “I can’t explain what it’s like to be reduced to a plaything whose only value lies in the value her owner assigns her.
” I reach up to tug at my necklace. “Collared, chained… turned into nothing and no one. It’s a desolate place to be. ”
“I can see what you mean from your perspective,” Max says with a nod. “Now, take into consideration that Greyson built this entire place for you. Would you have had that in the outside world?”
My lips thin as I shake my head, conceding his point.
“Right. Would you have someone who puts at least fifty grand worth of diamonds around your neck?”
“No.”
“Exactly. I’ll be the first to agree that Grey’s a shit communicator, but for all his faults and everything he’s done wrong…
he fucking adores you. Trust me when I say he never would’ve hurt you if he wasn’t fooled into believing you led his twin brother to his grave.
The place you have here might be tied in with him, but you also have power and freedom that you never would’ve gotten out there in the wild.
You could ask Grey for anything and he’d give it to you. ”
“In return for being his sex slave.” I don’t like that Max’s words are making a little too much sense, hitting a bit too close to home, so I’m trying to ground myself in the harsh reality of my new life—not the sweet fantasy.
“In return for being his woman.”
I swallow thickly. Hit the power button on the tech system. “I think I’m done for the day here,” I say quietly.
“Think on what I said,” Max tells me. “And think on acquiring me as a friend. I’m a useful ally to have.”
He follows me out of the greenhouse and onto the dirt road that leads us back to the compound. We walk side by side in slightly awkward silence, both lost in our thoughts.
A loud noise cuts through my thoughts, furrowing my eyebrows and making me cast a look around. It almost sounds like a far away car engine rumbling, except a bit… different. Then, the noise comes again—louder—and I realize that it doesn’t come from a car. It comes from a plane.
I crane my neck upwards, squinting at the plane that’s flying overhead. It glides over the length of the field, then circles back around…
“Oh, fuck,” Max takes my arm in an iron grip. Confusion takes root in my chest, and I glance up at him to see his eyes wide, lips thinned, and fear in his expression. That’s when comprehension hits me; this plane is not supposed to be here. And its presence is making Max look pale as a sheet.
“We need to get to cover,” he says as the plane circles back once again and starts making a beeline straight toward us. “Fuck, we need cover—”
“There’s no cover.” I try to think fast on my feet. Obviously, this is an enemy plane, so who knows what it’s equipped with. Hopefully, just surveillance equipment… but I fear it might be something much worse. “The greenhouse is made of glass.”
Max’s jaw clenches. He looks me up and down swiftly.
“We need to run,” he says. His hold shifts to my hand, and without waiting for a response, he takes off in a sprint.
I break out into the fastest run I can manage as well, heart pounding in my throat.
If the presence of this plane is enough to make Max, someone who kills people for a living, afraid, then I have every right to fear it.
Lucky for me, I’m extremely familiar with the sensation of fear. I grew up with it. I know how to let it propel me rather than handicap me.
In this moment, with a threat bearing down on me from the fucking sky, my fear propels me to run faster than I ever have before… but it’s not enough.
As the plane passes overhead, I catch a glimpse of an object falling from it. Something that gleams in the daylight and drops toward the ground at a dizzying speed. A horrible sinking sensation in my gut foretells the true danger…
Max jerks me sharply to the left a moment before a deafening boom echoes through the field.
The bomb dropped from the plane ignites in a horrifying pillar of smoke and flames…
and then an unbearably searing wave of air singes my skin and sends me flying through the air, tossed backward by the force of the shockwave.
I land hard on my back with a sickening crunch. A horrible ringing in my ears robs me of the ability to hear. I try to gasp, only to find that my lungs are frozen. My vision’s blurred, the world around me dims, and for a moment, I feel my body teetering on the brink of failure…
Air rushes into my lungs, making my chest expand with a painful, ragged gasp. Agony detonates across my skin, and as my vision focuses, I see that some of my clothes were burned off—and the skin on one of my arms is blistering. I think I might’ve caught fire at some point.
I release several painful, wheezing coughs, forcing myself into a sitting position.
Basic survival mode tells me that I need to get the fuck out of this open field before another bomb actually succeeds in blowing me up, but I don’t even know if I can stand.
Everything aches, and my head feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton.
“Scarlett!” I hear a faint echo of Max’s voice through the disastrous ringing in my ear. I manage to turn my head to look for him… just as he squats down in front of me.
His clothes are ripped and singed, and there are smears of black char staining his face, but he seems to be in fine shape, without any visible injuries.
“Scarlett, we have to go!” he shouts, right in my face. His words, the panic staining them, manage to cut through my temporary deafness. “Can you run?”
I don’t have much of a choice. A quick glance into the sky shows that the plane is out of sight… but it won’t be long before it returns. And when it does, I don’t think I’ll be so lucky as to avoid a fatal blast.
Somehow, with Max’s help, I manage to get to my feet. The agonizing burn on my arm constitutes the worst of my injury—the rest of my body aches and pangs fiercely, but nothing’s burned, broken, or immobilized.
Max takes one look at my wobbling form, curses under his breath, and picks me up in his arms. “Hold on,” he mutters. “Faster this way.”
He sets off at a break-neck pace, running as fast as we were before, even after surviving a blast and carrying my weight in his arms. I curl my arms around his neck and squeeze my eyes shut, praying that I won’t be sentenced to death by explosion.
There are a lot of shitty ways to go, and that one tops the list. If I’m going to die, I’d much prefer to go out by a bullet in my head or my heart—a quick death. Not an agonizing one.
Time slows to a crawl as the plane appears in the sky once again.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise, and everything within me shrivels at the understanding that I’m going to die.
Here, with the Nighthawks. In the arms of a relative stranger.
In an open field that I could’ve turned into a self-sustaining farm.
I’m going to die after a half-lived life that was taken from under me by an obsessed madman, and is about to be cut short entirely.
My chest tightens with emotions, and a sob gets caught in my throat. I cling tightly to Max, waiting for the moment another bomb drops. Waiting for the sensation of being burned alive.
A deafening boom sounds, but it comes from above us—not on the ground surrounding us.
Screeching follows, and mere seconds later, the horrible noise of something crashing.
The very ground beneath us rattles, as if there’s an earthquake.
My eyes flash open and I look around, confused. Why am I not burning alive?
Less than fifty feet away from us lies the black jet that was dropping bombs, crumpled into a heap and on fire.
Above us, a helicopter circles, one armed with a freaking machine gun.
The whirring of its blades is deafening, cutting through the fog dazing me, but I can make out the faint outline of someone manning the machine gun.
Someone who, presumably, aimed it at the enemy jet and fired off a round that resulted in the crash.
The helicopter veers away, disappearing from sight, just as my vision begins to dip and swim.
My adrenaline starts to crash now that the most immediate threat has been addressed, and the burns of my arm swiftly turn from extremely painful but tolerable to outright agonizing, enough so that a whimper gets caught in my throat.
“Scarlett—Scarlett,” Max says. He gives me a shake. I turn my head to look at him, listen to him, but the ringing in my ears has returned with a vengeance, and I’m losing my grip on reality.
Whatever Max is seeing prompts him to break out in a much faster sprint, and each of his steps jostle my body, overwhelming me with pain until black spots start to grow in my vision. They multiply and expand, turning into a swirling vortex that swallows me whole.